For certain at some point
you’ll believe in God or not,
and it will be in some way
a different belief than you held
earlier in life.  On that day

you’ll be rewarded: you’ll detect
a color in the base of the cup
of a simple yellow tulip,
a gray no one will ever have seen.
You’ll be blessed — and yet

at the same time you will lose your fondness
for Doberman Pinschers, start to see them as alien
and hideous, and turn your face to the wall
in sick disgust whenever you see one,
and you’ll be cursed.  

God, tulips, Dobies…nothing has changed
about any of these things.  Blessings, curses, ditto;
whatever you call it
when nothing has actually changed
but everything has?
That is what you call this. 

You’d best believe in it
if you haven’t already.  
Get right down in that gray
and squish around.
Pay no attention
to the barking since this, too,
shall pass.